


hold me while you wait

by Sephirron



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, F/F, edelgrid, i am taking no criticisms on that, no beta we die like Glenn, peak angst, the kingdom noble edelgard loved was ingrid, this follows the path of silver snow you have been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sephirron/pseuds/Sephirron
Summary: “Yes, of course. I apologize if I had disturbed you. You can return to your quarters, I’m alright.”The pace to her words were even, practiced. And it was Ingrid’s next words that made her freeze in her tracks on her way back to her bed.“You never used to have night terrors, Edelgard.”Edelgard whirled on her heel and stared incredulously at the door. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. Ingrid’s voice traveled through the door again.“You don’t remember anymore, do you?”aka. Edelgard’s first love was a noble from the kingdom. Ingrid seems all too familiar for reasons she can’t recall.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 24
Kudos: 51





	hold me while you wait

**Author's Note:**

> *pops in after listening to hours of sad songs*
> 
> Hello - little change of pace for this rarepair that I love so dearly. It's angst and I hope you enjoy it!

Faerghus was dim year round. The sun always hid behind the blanket of smokey gray clouds and if it ever appeared, its rays shone down, void of warmth. Ingrid awoke every morning to a breeze that prickled in her lungs, like snowflakes that had spread and crackled over every nerve in her body in its icy grip. She huddled beneath a fur hood and rarely looked towards the sky. If she took her pegasus for a flight, even above the clouds and their expanse of white, she never felt any warmer. 

Ingrid was fond of storybooks but not the usual fairytale kind that spoke of whimsical romance or mythical creatures. It was tales of chivalry, of heroic needs and their deeds derived from justice. The devotion of serving a liege that was tied to a higher purpose of nobility. It was what she wanted. It was how she wanted to live and how she wanted to die. Unlike everything else in her life that was dictated by crests, this was the one choice she wished to make. 

And even when Glenn stood in the shadow of his king and then wallowed in death’s hollow embrace beneath the flames of a crumbling kingdom, Ingrid never looked for the light again. 

Duty served in the dark. Love flourished in its shadow, and she was convinced that that’s where it would remain. 

When she found love again in the form of a princess, Ingrid could scarcely believe it. Her eyes bloomed in lilac like the spring Ingrid had never known. Her hair was white like Faerghus snow and yet all she wanted was to run her fingers through it, somehow knowing she would find where the sun had kissed.

And oh, how she wanted to kiss her. She wanted to steal more forbidden moments in the shadows of the monastery halls. She wanted to sink in the warmth that only Edelgard held for her, in every thread of silk in her gloves down to the scars of her palms. 

She loved her.

Yet the sun was shining as Faerghus banners fluttered when they invaded the imperial capital and the palace itself. Standing resolute at the throne was Edelgard, armored in gold and black feathers. She wore an empty look on her face beneath her heavy crown that was colder than Ingrid had ever known.

This was wrong.

When the battle commenced, Ingrid pierced through her enemies and soaked herself in their blood. Their cries rang in her veins, nearly crippling her resolve with every step. The only salvation that she held was looking away as they fell. 

_This is wrong._

They pressed the army and cut through their defenses up the stairs to the throne room. Ingrid held the bile in her throat as she ran past her former classmates that had been killed. She struck down another soldier just before the stairs to the throne. As he fell, the silhouette of gold and red came into focus. Ingrid’s body froze as she locked eyes with who she had been trying to avoid this entire battle. 

The rays of the sun pierced through the windows and cast a halo around Edelgard as she looked up to her, bloodied and torn. 

“El…” she whispered, the emotions of her turmoil and longing flooding into every corner of her breath. 

She saw the subtle flinch in her jaw and the twitch in her brow. 

“Don’t. Don’t fall apart here. You’re a knight, are you not?” Edelgard said as coldly as she could. But Ingrid knew she wasn’t angry. She knew Edelgard couldn’t face her breaking heart all over again. 

Ingrid’s hand tightened over her lance. “I… I wanted to-”

She sidestepped the swing of Edelgard’s relic and grasped her lance in both hands to block the next strike. They struggled in the middle, sparks flying off the hot orange of their relics. Ingrid could see the full of her pink lips, mere breaths away. A cloud had passed over the sun, an overcast blocking out the light in the palace, and Ingrid wondered if Edelgard could see it.

If she could see that even the shadow of war, standing on the bridge to death’s door, she still loved her. 

\--

Garreg Mach was different from the prisons beneath the imperial palace. When Edelgard had first arrived, she scoffed beneath her breath at the sheer size of it. Brick upon brick stacked to elegant towers that looked as though they could scrape the heavens itself. The glass windows intricately crafted, the facets of colors glittering brilliantly all over the halls. 

It made Edelgard sick, wondering how the Church could possibly impose such prestige and arrogance while people suffered in the dark. How its polished silver in brightly lit halls could entice those to believe in their purity and faith. She had to physically restrain herself from spitting on holy ground as she walked to and from her classes.

To Edelgard’s grief, her classmates were not of a similar flock to the church. They were bright, they were refreshing, and they were foolishly kind to the brim of their hearts. It was something Edelgard wanted to revel in for a little longer. The echo of her past, a little girl, yearned to stay with them, to walk their path forward together. 

But her past wasn’t always hopeful, it wasn’t always kind like her companions. Her past haunted her in her dreams in forms of faceless screams and suffocating chains. There was a point where she had forgotten what the sky had looked like while she laid intertwined with the cold embrace of the dungeon’s walls. Once she had finally been released, it didn’t feel like freedom. Though she had gained power, her scars wrote that she had been robbed. 

If anyone told her that a knight would be the one to save her, she would’ve sooner cast herself to the ocean’s depths that she feared so much. 

But Ingrid was different.

Edelgard wondered why she looked familiar. Why the memory wrapped her in a chill shiver, but the blonde hue to her hair remained shining in her mind’s eye. As though long ago, they had met. It was impossible to know how, only to know that it was nothing but true. Her love for her pegasus, her pride as a warrior, her appetite that could compete with men triple her size. Edelgard’s heart tugged when she heard her laugh, as if they had shared endless moments just like Ingrid was having now in the circle of her friends. 

She told the Professor once, on the night of the ball, that there was a story of her first love. She recalled nothing, yet the words flowed seamlessly underneath the moonlight in the Goddess Tower. 

“It was a noble I met in the kingdom, a lifetime ago.” She continued to wonder.

She didn’t muse for long, for the answer found her in the night. Like breaking the surface of the sea, she took a gasping breath when a sharp knock at her door cut through her tortured unconsciousness. She shakily stood from her bed, grabbing her robe off the chair as she did her best to steady her breath. 

“Who is it?” she spoke to the wooden door.

“It’s Ingrid. I heard shouting, are you well?”

She cursed silently, then recomposed herself. 

“Yes, of course. I apologize if I had disturbed you. You can return to your quarters, I’m alright.” 

The pace to her words were even, practiced. It was Ingrid’s next words that made her freeze in her tracks on her way back to her bed. 

“You never used to have night terrors, Edelgard.”

Edelgard whirled on her heel and stared incredulously at the door. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. 

“You don’t remember anymore, do you?” Ingrid continued, her voice muffled by the wood. 

Edelgard’s brow furrowed and a headache started to form. With a heaved sigh, she padded over to the door again and hesitantly turned the handle. She cracked the door open and the first thing she saw was the emerald of her eyes, glimmering with concern and something else she couldn’t place. Whatever she saw in them caused her to open the door a little wider. 

“I don’t know what you mean, Ingrid,” Edelgard replied honestly.

Ingrid’s lips ticked up in a smile, though it was far from happy. 

“May I come in?” 

It was a bold question to ask - to Edelgard, Ingrid was a stranger, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity for the familiar bond that she had no recollection of. She decided there wasn’t anything to lose from letting her in, there would come a time where she would have to leave them all behind. 

She was prepared to move forward without them, to a dawn of a world that would no longer steal life in the dark.

Ingrid stepped carefully into her room and made no sudden movements. They stood apart in the quiet, Edelgard’s arms crossed tightly over her chest while Ingrid’s hung loosely at her side. 

“Tell me what you mean that I didn’t used to have night terrors before. How could _you_ possibly know that?” Edelgard accused. The unknown of the situation made her uneasy. Control is what she needed, more than anything. Control is what kept her unharmed. 

Ingrid shifted from foot to foot as if she was unsure herself. “When I was younger, an imperial carriage came to the kingdom and a young lord and his niece had come to stay for awhile. But your hair was different back then, wasn’t it?”

Edelgard looked at her stunned, her fingertips rolling strands of her now white hair between her forefinger and thumb. Ingrid didn’t miss it.

Her head turned toward the window, her gaze on the night sky sprinkled with stars. 

“You tried to teach me how to dance, along with Dimitri. As you saw at the ball, we’re still terrible at it,” Ingrid chuckled dryly. 

_You’re supposed to lead with your right, Ingrid!_ Her own voice, lighter and pure, rang in her head. She remembered the ball, Ingrid was practically tripping over her feet and the look of embarrassment on her face was no mistake. The frown was the same from before. 

_El, c’mon, the sun’s going down! Let’s go home._

Home. What a strange notion. 

“And I see that you still kept them,” Ingrid added. 

“Them?” Edelgard repeated, though she was breathless. 

From her desk, the silk of her purple ribbons were picked up delicately in Ingrid’s hands. It was then Ingrid had walked up to her and held them out to a stiff Edelgard. She made no move to accept them.

“I tried to take you flying. You hated it because your hair kept getting in your way.”

_Isn’t this great, El? We can see the whole kingdom from up here!_

_Ingrid, slow down, I can’t_ **_see_ ** _anything!_

The images continued to play in her mind as clear as day and without stop.

_“El, is it true? You’re really going away?” Ingrid asked breathlessly after she had chased her down._

_Edelgard frowned and nodded solemnly. “Yes. It’s all happening so fast, Ingrid. I was really surprised too.”_

_Ingrid’s eyes were sad but Edelgard could tell, she was trying to be strong for her, like a knight would. “Okay, El. But this isn’t goodbye! When I’m big enough, Astra and I are going to fly down to Enbarr to see you! Until then, just keep walking on your path, okay?”_

_Ingrid puffed her cheeks and Edelgard laughed. It was short lived, evaporating when she heard the impatient tone of her Uncle call from the carriage. Edelgard frowned and called back. She sighed and looked at Ingrid again. She hugged the young knight tightly and Ingrid squeezed back in equal strength. Then she scurried off to the carriage as her Uncle ushered her in quickly. Through the window she saw Ingrid jumping up and down, waving her hand._

_“This isn’t goodbye!”_

It was so vivid that it winded her, an audible gasp escaping her lips. The Faerghus winter, the kingdom, and Ingrid. She knew Ingrid was different but she would’ve never imagined this. She knew Ingrid was familiar, but not this close to her heart. 

“Ingrid…” 

“Sorry, Edelgard. I probably should’ve given you something that made you a little happier before you went away,” Ingrid said, dropping the ribbons to the bottom of Edelgard’s bed. “Something happened, right? That’s why you look so sad. I almost didn’t recognize you myself. But there’s no mistake, is there? You know it too.”

Ingrid was the one she waited for to save her, to carry her from her living nightmare. Edelgard knew, but Ingrid didn’t - that the knight in fact didn’t make good on her promise, that the Edelgard she knew was buried with the rest of her family. 

“I… I remember everything,” Edelgard said instead, in a slight stupor. “Ingrid, I don’t know what to say…”

Edelgard von Hresvelg at loss for words. Pitiful, really. Had she really become so incapable?

Ingrid shook her head, gently taking Edelgard’s hand. The princess let her. “You don’t have to say anything. We’re here now. How can I help?”

The words caught in Edelgard’s throat. Ingrid acted like years hadn’t passed, like time hadn’t changed who they were. She wanted to yell, to jump at the opportunity of keeping someone she cherished. Though she had forgotten her, it didn’t change that now she wanted her to remain by her side. Though she herself had changed, molded and tortured to be a peerless emperor, she longed for a warmth long lost. The warmth she longed for when the world turned hazy beneath the unrelenting pain and neverending dread that swallowed her siblings whole. 

The tears she thought she had been long rid of streamed down her cheeks in rivers that flowed into the basin of Ingrid’s warm palm. The cries broke through and she didn’t stop them. The fortress of her carefully placed emotions crumbled before Ingrid’s eyes and she caught every one, letting Edelgard fall into her embrace as knelt them on the floor. 

The knight’s hands wove into her hair as she held her close through the sobs that shook her body. “It’s okay, El. I’m here.”

Edelgard nearly laughed at the call of her old namesake from its grave. But Ingrid wasn’t a ghost like the others, she was alive. In the cloak of night, they were alive with a love rekindled like the strike of a match. 

In her arms, she wondered if maybe she didn’t have to say goodbye to someone she loved ever again. 

\--

There were things about Edelgard that hadn’t really changed, much to Ingrid’s amusement. She was still as headstrong and demanding as she had been when they were just kids. She ruled the Black Eagle House with an authority suited to a house leader. Ingrid knew she got off easy with just a dance lesson. She still loved sweets, not too sweet, though she wouldn’t care to admit it to anyone. Crimson flowers were still her favorite if the delicate blush on her face when Ingrid gave her a bouquet of them wasn’t proof enough. 

Then there were things about Edelgard that were different. She was far more calculating and observant, never acting without purpose. When they were kids, she flinched at the sight of Faerghus swords, but now she was cutting down bandits with unshakeable resolve. Her night terrors clearly had no effect on her during the day or at least she had muted them to a point where they didn’t. 

No matter the suffering that Ingrid couldn’t fathom, Edelgard had aged beautifully, the way expensive wine would if Ingrid had ever tasted such a thing. She imagined this is what it would look like. It was when Ingrid finally had the courage to seal her lips over Edelgard’s own did she know that she tasted better than any luxury the world could offer her. It happened in the dark corners of the monastery, away from prying eyes as Edelgard continued to pull her closer. Ingrid could barely stay away for a breath before taking Edelgard in like she had been starved the years they had been apart. With the way Edelgard’s gloved hands clutched at her, Ingrid knew Edelgard had been empty too. 

“I missed you, El.” 

“And I, you.” 

It was in the dark that they continued to love one another, in the small space of peace away from the world. Away from the call of Edelgard’s imperial birth and Ingrid’s duty chained to her kingdom. This was the love Ingrid knew and the one Edelgard wished could remain. Bare beneath the sheets of her bedroom as Ingrid slept, Edelgard continued to break. 

She should’ve never let Ingrid complete her, though no one else could. 

And yet underneath another night sky, Edelgard let Ingrid take her on a flight. Astra had just been a young horse all those years ago, now standing majestic in her sleek white mane and fully-sprouted wings. Edelgard felt her heart ache when Astra nuzzled her nose into her palm without hesitation. Astra had remembered her where she had not. 

“Let’s go, Astra!” Ingrid cheered, snapping at the reins as the strode into a full flight above the monastery. 

High above the clouds, Edelgard let the view take her breath away. The moon was bright in a perfect curved glow. The monastery was far beneath them, the faint outline of its structure the only thing Edelgard could see beneath the night’s horizon. The dawn would come and Edelgard felt that this was the freedom she longed for, in the edge of dawn to the future she would carve with her own two hands. She looked solemnly at Ingrid’s back.

_Will she want to come with me?_

Astra’s speed slowed to a hovering glide, flapping her wings occasionally to keep them level above the clouds. Ingrid slowly loosened her grip on the reins and turned to Edelgard. 

“Are you doing alright? How long has it been since you’ve been on a flight?”

“Not since you,” Edelgard replied.

Ingrid hummed in response and gave her a bright smile that made Edelgard feel like her ribs cracked. “Well, I hope to take you on many more then. The night sky is my favorite.”

Ingrid’s head was turned towards the sky and Edelgard only looked at her face, the curve of her jaw, and the light in her eyes.

“It’s beautiful, Ingrid,” the princess said quietly. “I hope so, too.”

They sealed their hopes in another kiss and the winds had dried Edelgard’s stray tear before Ingrid could see it. The dawn would break soon and Edelgard knew that their love that only blossomed in the dark would have to face the light, eventually. 

And despite all of her careful planning, everything that she had mentally prepared for, Edelgard could scarcely face the way Ingrid looked at her once the mask she hid behind was knocked to the floor of the Holy Tomb. Her perfected draft of her manifesto she had memorized and the thousands of soldiers that had already taken to it, seemed to wither to ash in the pool of Ingrid’s emerald eyes swirling in betrayal. She wished she wouldn’t look at her at all so she could just leave without the heaviness in her heart expanding to every nerve in her body. 

She swore that she wouldn’t beg for her forgiveness. She convinced herself she wouldn’t ask Ingrid to understand. She said she wouldn’t hold out hope that Ingrid would see right through her guise and trust in the love that they shared. She told herself she didn’t deserve such things. 

But the knight had always made her act in unpredictable ways. 

“In the light, would you have loved me still?” Edelgard asked, the sadness in her voice palpable as it echoed through the tomb. Ingrid’s eyes widened, but Edelgard was gone in a flash as Hubert blinked behind her and warped her away in a glow of purple light.

Edelgard knew Ingrid’s dreams. To serve as a knight in the shadow of her liege. But the emperor couldn’t stay in the dark any longer. She had been imprisoned there for an eternity. It was time to greet a new dawn, a dawn that could finally feel like freedom. And she would be fortunate if she lived long enough to see it. 

\--

The palace was quivering beneath the battle that had run through its halls. All the Black Eagles had fallen, leaving the Emperor to her solemn rule. Edelgard was a fierce opponent and Ingrid could barely hold her ground under the strength of her blows. She heaved rasping breaths as she deflected and dodged every blow, but she was running out of time. It wouldn’t be long before her body would give out from the exertion.

This was her only chance.

With two hands, she blocked another overhead strike that brought her down to one knee. Edelgard looked surprised, her brow raised at the sight of Ingrid submitting to her.

“I never answered your question, did I?”

Edelgard narrowed her eyes but recognition passed over them just as quickly. Her brow furrowed again.

“Ingrid, don’t,” Edelgard warned, not in a threat, but in fear. Fear of knowing what her answer really was. 

“It matters how this ends, El,” Ingrid protested, shoving Edelgard off before clashing with her once again in a horizontal strike. “Despite the war, despite _everything,”_ the knight grit out, tears falling now. “Edelgard, let what we shared, how we _loved,_ be the way we remember us.”

The emperor faltered. The girl Ingrid remembered appeared in the pain that surfaced on her face. The face she used to hold so preciously in her hands, the lips she used to kiss with fervor like she was the only one that mattered. That in every touch they shared, no one else mattered but her. 

“El, I love you still,” Ingrid choked out. “In the dark and in the light. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Edelgard’s jaw went slack as she parried a strike and backed away. For a few moments, the room disappeared around them in the way it used to when they were together. Her lilac eyes searched Ingrid’s. The betrayal that had struck so deep within her heart all those years ago was gone, replaced with a resolve that was so like Ingrid, Edelgard smiled. A small one, but a smile all the same. 

She really had missed Ingrid. 

Edelgard’s eyes darted to the side and she closed them, facing Ingrid once again, letting her shield and axe lower.

“It looks like this is goodbye,” Edelgard said, her eyes turned to the ceiling of the palace as her army, her friends, lay dead around her. “Take me for another flight, would you?”

Ingrid knew. It was over. Their army was fast approaching and they wouldn’t risk this war going any further. She bowed her head and her grip on her lance tightened where her fingers ached. The palace floor blurred behind her tears and with a yell that tore at her throat in heartache, she thrust her lance forward, the tip breaking through Edelgard’s plated armor. There was a grunt of pain and nothing more before Ingrid withdrew just as quickly, her lance carelessly tossed to the side, and she caught Edelgard as she fell. 

From behind Ingrid, the Professor held her sword out, signaling for the army to stop. Many of them looked at her confused, particularly Seteth and the other students. Byleth inclined her head as if the image of a broken Ingrid and Edelgard weren’t enough for them.

“It’s over. Let them be,” Byleth said quietly. The army withdrew on her orders as Ingrid’s cries resounded so powerfully that Byleth was sure the dead could hear her grief.

“Forgive me, El,” Ingrid begged, her shoulders shaking from trying not to cry so loud. It came out in strained gasps that she could barely control. “Please, forgive me.”

Edelgard smiled and shook her head softly in Ingrid’s arms. “There’s no need for that, my love.”

Ingrid choked on her breath as Edelgard’s began to thin. She rubbed at the tears furiously with the back of her glove and whistled as loud as she could. Astra loyally swooped in through the palace doors and landed beside the fallen pair. Astra bowed her head, her ears tucked that indicated her worry. Edelgard’s eyes focused on her unsteadily as she reached her palm out, the pegasus nuzzling gently. 

Ingrid rose with Edelgard in her arms, settling into Astra’s saddle as she held Edelgard secure. Her mighty wings flapped and they soared out of the palace into the sky where the clouds had cleared and left the palette of sundown, blended in orange and violet with the few stars that twinkled. Ingrid took them far above the clouds where the air was clear. 

“We’re here, El,” Ingrid spoke. Edelgard’s face was pale and to Ingrid’s temporary relief, her lilac eyes opened once again. 

“It’s beautiful…” Edelgard murmured though she only looked at Ingrid, the same way she did before they parted ways. Edelgard shakily removed her armored glove and raised her hand to Ingrid’s cheek, an icy thumb caressing her soft skin. Ingrid breathed in deeply and held fast to her. 

“You kept your promise,” Edelgard said.

“What promise?” 

Edelgard laughed lightly, breathlessly. “You and Astra came to save me after all. Now my path can end here.”

“El…” Ingrid whispered as her voice cracked from the strain. “I wanted to go with you. I wanted-”

Edelgard raised her head and kissed the knight. Her lips were cold, but covered Ingrid’s heart in a warmth that could melt a millennia of winters. Ingrid clutched onto her tightly and held Edelgard’s lips as long as fate would allow her. Edelgard withdrew and her eyes were drooping and her lungs shuddered. 

“I wanted... to love you beneath a new dawn, too,” Edelgard finished for her. Ingrid nodded to her and Edelgard spared her another smile. Her chest stilled and Ingrid felt as though her heart was crushed. The sun had faded behind the mountains and the night had returned, the moonlight painting over the smile that still graced the emperor’s face. 

Ingrid placed a shaky kiss on her forehead and stroked her hair delicately. 

“Goodbye, El. Sweet dreams.” 

**Author's Note:**

> ;A;
> 
> I might write the happier version to this, we shall see!
> 
> Drop your feedback, kudos, and comments if you'd like! Always appreciate it <3
> 
> Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/EdelgardEisner) for other updates and stories!


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